In Flanders Fields the Poppies Blow, Between the Crosses, Row on Row
by potatochip53
Summary: Cybertron had fallen. The Decepticons had targeted all departing Rescue Bot ships. It was a miracle that they managed to make it out alive. Rescue Squadron Sigma-17. The last Rescue Bots. A dying breed. A dead breed. We are the dead; short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.


_You are my sunshine_

The flowers died on a Monday. They turned yellow and wilted to the side and were crunched under the feet of careless humans. The grass grew a little less green and the sky looked to be tinged with a bit more grey.

 _My only sunshine_

Sirens echoed throughout the small island town of Griffin Rock as the Rescue Bots sped across town, Heatwave in the lead. It was a simple rescue. It should've been a simple rescue. But something went wrong, because something always has to go wrong and that's what you get for assuming everything would be okay. It was an unstable mountainside. They should have been more careful and Blades shouldn't have even been on the ground. Shouldn't have. _Shouldn't have_. But he was. And it cost them everything. The last vestiges of the mountains support crumbled and Huxley Prescott was under the mountain. That damn idiot newscaster who got in the way of everything was still under the _goddamn_ unstable mountain.

And of course Blades, the fearful helicopter who had no fear when it mattered, dove. He pushed Huxley out from under the mountain. There was a sickening crunch as the rocks gave way and buried him alive. Graham immediately ordered Boulder to begin digging, but Heatwave stopped them with a single hand. The humans could see sorrow painted over his face. A light blue color began to seep out from under the rocks and Dani let out a sob. She was startled out of her grief as Heatwave suddenly clunked down onto a single knee, head bowed, the rest of the bots following. He murmured something in a language that was long dead, another one of its declining number of speakers having fallen. Then he repeated it louder this time, and a third time in English.

"Until all are one. May Primus be with you. I'll see you in the Well of Allsparks. Brother."

The phrase was repeated by Chase, then Boulder. The mountainside smelled of burnt metal and dust filled the air. The sound of Dani's sobs echoed. Heatwave drove her home. She should've been flying.

 _You make me happy_

The humans watched. They watched closely. The bot's tried to hide it, but the humans had been with them long enough to know. They could see it, in the darker imagery of Boulder's paintings, in the scratches of Heatwave's paint after he had pushed himself into training the entire night, and even in the way Chase wouldn't speak as much about laws and regulations anymore. Nothing would ever be the same. The thuds of metal footfalls grew heavier and optics burned dimmer. Another Rescue Bot was gone.

Rescue squadron Sigma-17 was missing a fourth of its team. In the days directly after, it was so painfully obvious the gap that Blades's termination had left. The lack of air support and the sound of rotors swooshing against the air. The way Heatwave and Kade would still sometimes forget to wait for Dani. The sound of a helicopter hovering in the sky opened bloody, festering wounds of grief that would likely never heal.

Once, when gathered for a family dinner, the Burns family heard the bots speaking together outside. They approached a window to find Boulder standing and staring into the night sky while Heatwave and Chase sat and leaned against each other. The way that Chase maneuvered his hand over Heatwave's while the fire bot pushed his head closer to the other's neck did not go amiss. They all three looked up into the stars, voices barely audible to the human family.

Boulder's voice was first, "Do you guys ever wonder what happened to Cybertron?"

"Didn't you hear Optimus?," Heatwave's voice was hot with anger and grief, "Cybertron's nothing but a barren wasteland consumed by death. It's last days burned with war and fighting. They bombed Praxus. Vos was overrun by Cons. We lost Kaon in the beginning. Iacon was the last to go. I heard the Hall of Records was where the remaining bots trapped planetside made their last stand. It's gone. It's all gone. We are a dying breed. They targeted Rescue Bots. We are the last. And our home is gone. We lost everything."

The silence was only broken by Chase shifting closer to Heatwave, pulling the red mech against his chest. Chief Burns motioned his family to go back to dinner. Cybertron was gone. There was nothing they could do but let the bots mourn.

 _When skies are grey_

Boulder was the next to fall. He was electrocuted while stopping a car accident from potentially destroying an apartment building. He backed up into the power lines after the force of the car colliding with his legs knocked him back. Normally he would've been fine. Normally. But the powerplant had already been running on high after an incident of a power outage a few days prior. Millions of volts of raw, untamed, powerful electricity surged into Boulder's body. It sparked in trails across his green paint job, blue streaks of lightning resembling the open sky. It was a beautiful painting. Boulder would have been proud.

The electricity surged. Boulder didn't. His spark stopped almost instantaneously. There was no pain. Hopefully. Graham circled him frantically, logic overriding emotion as he knew Boulder's body still carried remnants of the extreme voltage. Heatwave and Chase were there seconds later. The dead grey of Boulder's optics created a haunting image. One Boulder would've hated. He would have said it was too gloomy. Too depressing. Heatwave didn't care about discretion anymore. He openly grabbed for Chase's hand, squeezing it painfully tight. They were the only two left now. The Police and the Fire Truck. Their Air Support was long gone. It fell out of the sky awhile ago. The Engineering Department just terminated its contract.

They lit fireworks that night. It was in no means happy. In fact, it may have been the most saddening show that any of them had ever seen. Because Boulder wasn't there to see it. He would've gleefully laughed, pointing out all the colors while simultaneously naming the elements and compounds that caused the colors. Strontium carbonate for red. Copper chloride for blue. Calcium chloride for orange. Barium chloride for green. Boulder would've wanted them to be happy. But as Heatwave looked up at the colors illuminating the sky, he couldn't feel anything but pain.

 _You'll never know, dear_

Heatwave and Chase could rarely be seen separate. You could never have one without the other. At first it seemed like they were just banding together after the deaths of their friends. Leaning on each other to get through the hard times. But as the time went on, it became apparent that they had become physically and emotionally reliant on the others presence. Whenever Chase left Heatwave's line of sight, the red mech would glance around, slowly at first, then getting more frantic the longer Chase was gone. His legs would start to shake and sometimes his visor would unconsciously come down as a sort of emotional shield.

Then Chase would return and wrap his arms around Heatwave, quietly whispering apologies in the others ear. At that point, whatever human was around would try to make themselves scarce. And sometimes when Heatwave left Chase, the police bot's voice box would short out. His deep voice would periodically be interrupted by crackles of static and sometimes, in really bad instances, Chase would lose control of his sirens and a few _whoop's_ would echo through the fire house. Then Heatwave would return and rub Chase's shoulders, occasionally running metal fingers across the smooth windshield on the blue mechs chest, calming him down.

 _How much I love you_

Chase was dead. Chase was dead. He was dead and gone and Heatwave would never be able to see him again. And the fire bot was the only one left. He shouldn't be the one left. He didn't deserve to survive after the rest of his team had perished. This wasn't supposed to happen. Humans weren't supposed to be this destructive. It wasn't supposed to be this dangerous. Blades wasn't supposed to have been crushed to the spark casing with heavy rock. Boulder's spark shouldn't have stopped. And _Chase shouldn't be bleeding copious amounts of life-giving energon in his arms_. He shielded a bunch of humans from a falling building. It was the Rescue Bot code and Chase was always a sucker for protocol. But he managed to get himself impaled with a steel beam.

Their team had gathered around. Well, it was just humans now, but Heatwave ignored everything that wasn't Chase. The fire bot pulled Chase closer to his chest, cradling his head with vivid red arms. Energon leaked out of the wound and trickled down the side of the police bot's mouth. His optics began the slow decline into oblivion, sky blue dimming into a weak pastel like the above right before daybreak peaked over the horizon. Chase shook in Heatwave's arms. Because even though the he knew this would happen, even though Chase was logically driven and knew that life was only a prerequisite to death, he still didn't want to die. He was scared. There was no protocol or regulations in death. It was chaotic.

Chase was calm. Chase was reasonable. He knew what he could and couldn't have and he was driven by analytics and logic. But in that moment, he cried out. He moaned in pain as energon poured in a sparkling blue waterfall down his side. He wanted Heatwave. He wanted Chief Burns. He wanted his family. He wanted Cybertron back. He just wanted to go home. He wanted everything there was to want. Chase tried to hold back tears. He wanted to be dignified and strong, but they rolled down his cheeks anyway. The first few tears were followed by many more, a realization that maybe, just maybe Chase was starting to lose control.

A warm metal hand caressed his face and the blue mech smiled into a bright red chest that shone like the sun. It was warm. It was comfortable. Chase curled in on himself, groaning at the pain in his side. And because he was logic driven, Chase knew. He knew that at this point, it was too late and there was nothing left to do. But he still looked up at Heatwave, blue optics now interchangeable with grey, and he asked if everything was going to be okay.

Heatwave felt his insides coil tight, only just able to squeeze out the words, "Yeah. Yes Chase. Everything is fine. Everything will be alright. I'll keep you safe. I-I love you."

Chase smiled for the first time in a long time. He relaxed and his body went limp in Heatwave's arms. His vision flickered and sparked, reality dancing just out of reach, taunting him. Arms tightened around his chest but Chase was already too far gone to notice. In the distance, he could see a red pinprick of light. It was Heatwave's color. Chase closed his optics and went towards it. It echoed a soothing aura. The police mech hesitated, what about Heatwave? But the light drew him in. He would wait. Yes, he would wait for Heatwave to arrive too, and they could finally be together again. Chase let go. As he traveled into the light, there was a faint echo that sounded almost like screaming.

 _Please don't take_

Everybody was dead. Three funeral pyres had came and went. Heatwave was the only one left. The last Rescue Bot. The last of rescue squadron Sigma-17. He was broken. There wasn't any reason for him to be alive anymore. He still kept the humans out of harm's way of course, but he didn't hold much care for himself anymore. Dani watched as his optics scanned the lines of high-speed traffic buzzing on the Interstate. She shifted her foot minutely closer to the brakes and observed him with worried eyes. Graham noticed how Heatwave would stomp along mountains, as if hoping it would all go down and take him with it. Chief Burns could only offer distractions, acting as if he hadn't noticed the increasing number of dents and scratches even though they hadn't gone on a rescue in weeks.

Kade walked in on Heatwave staring down the barrel of a gun he kept for emergencies. Kade managed to persuade his partner to _hey, why don't we put the gun down and uh, go for a wax, huh Heatwave?_ Another disaster narrowly avoided. Deep down, the Burns family knew they couldn't keep Heatwave for much longer. Something was wrong. He wasn't all there. It wasn't until they discretely messaged Optimus that they realized the toll Chase's death had taken on Heatwave.

Optimus reported that they had been conjunx endura, bonded to each other for life. The thing about Cybertronians is, they are so much braver than humans. You enter a bond for life. One partner dies, it basically rips out half of the others spark. Heatwave was running on fumes. Chief Burns didn't know what to do. Kade tried to keep the fire mech with it, but it was getting harder. Heatwave's optics became vacant alarmingly frequent. He wouldn't last much longer.

 _My sunshine_

It was almost a relief when it finally happened. They were called in for an emergency. An apartment building was in blazes. Heatwave went in. The floors were burning, the roof was collapsing. The building was coming down around him. The smoke was so thick it began to clog his intakes. They stuttered once, twice, before Heatwave fell, vivid red paint meshing in with the flames. He didn't come back out.

If he was stronger, more determined. If the rest of the team was still alive, there would've been a way out. Kade knew, Chief Burns knew, Dani and Graham knew. Heatwave could've gotten out of the burning building. But maybe it was better this way. Going down in a blaze of glory instead of a pathetic shot from his own gun. The fire mech curled into a corner, the harsh flames burning his metal and providing him with the relief he so craved. It was better to die doing something he loved, shrouded in the flames of falling stars. It wasn't so bad. He knew something wasn't right. He should've been feeling pain by then, but all he felt was numb. Optical circuits began to crackle and spark casing started to melt. Heatwave looked up from his cove of flames. He was dying. He was flying. He was _burning_. Heatwave looked up and amongst the flaming yellows and oranges and reds, he saw a flash of blue.

 _Away_


End file.
